Could a Treme City Hall doom Cantrell re-election

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist

For the past nine months, Mayor LaToya Cantrell has coasted into the likelihood of a second term. No opponent with any degree of name recognition has announced a challenge. The city’s most prominent Democrats have instead opted to run for the open At-Large seat – and with good reason.

Liberals and conservatives alike generally have praised the mayor’s actions during the pandemic. The Left has honored Cantrell’s cautious attitude about reopening the city at a slower speed than neighboring parishes, so New Orleans would not be getting the ignominious title of COVID-19 “hotspot.” The Right looked upon the mayor with satisfaction during the “Black Lives Matter” protests for insisting on peaceful demonstrations, and making it clear to its leaders that mass arrests would follow if New Orleans experienced the civil disorder of other cities. Protest by all means, she reportedly said, but keep it peaceful.

Yet, Cantrell has always had her detractors on both sides. Entrepreneurs and cultural advocates of live music have argued that the city’s outdoor restrictions were too unscientifically draconian. Equally, local progressives have grown disappointed that the mayor was “insufficiently woke” on matters from the monuments controversy to the minimum wage. The fallout has meant that Cantrell’s one-time, mortal-lock on her Uptown New Orleans electorate no longer proves quite as secure, and, as a consequence, the Mayor needs greater citywide support to be guaranteed re-election. In other words, she cannot count on overwhelming turnout Uptown to overcome a strong candidate citywide contender – the method by which Cantrell prevailed against Desiree Charbonnet.

That’s the danger for the incumbent mayor in her pursuit of a new City Hall within the old Municipal Auditorium space at Armstrong Park. Cantrell had pursued the controversial proposal, in an election year, in an effort not to lose the $36 million in FEMA reconstruction money from Hurricane Katrina – monies which will soon evaporate if some kind of rehabilitation work does not begin soon at the 91-year-old structure, still devastated from the inundations of nearly 16 years ago.

However, critics noted that the huge building is still not big enough to hold all existing city offices, and its reconstruction into a municipal complex would require the erection of a multi-story office tower and parking complex which promises to overshadow both Congo Square and the historic Treme neighborhood. That got downtown voters incensed. They did not buy the mayor’s argument that telecommuting city employees would allow for a smaller office footprint at Armstrong Park.

And their opposition only intensified. Protesters marched from Congo Square last Thursday to Duncan Plaza to send the message that moving City Hall to the park would erase culture and history. “This is about supporting our heritage and our history, something that we often overlook but we’re not overlooking it anymore,” said one of the protesters as he spoke to the crowd.

“This move, this land grab because that’s what it is, to me it’s filled with arrogance and egotism,” musician Davell Crawford told WWL-TV.

And some of Cantrell’s key supporters on the City Council had begun to speak out. “We can’t possibly have a place that represents us if the community does not want it to be here,” said District “C” Councilwoman and current At-Large contender Kristin Palmer.

Admittedly, no one has really answered the mayor’s question that if there is no City Hall, what happens to the blighted auditorium? The $36 million is a lot of money, yet it’s only a fraction of the more than $100 million cost to re-convert the building into a performance venue. Moreover, federal rules require that the money begins to be spent by this year’s end, or it’s lost forever. Finally, everyone seems to agree that the current City Hall is falling apart and rehabilitation of the 1950s-era tower would cost more than to construct a new property. Critics just don’t have any viable cost-effective alternatives, contended Cantrell.

Still, the biggest electoral upsets in New Orleans history came from a looming controversial issue on the eve of qualifying, and a candidate willing to take on the incumbent over the matter. Cantrell’s plan envisioned the Civil District Court moving to Armstrong Park (and the judicial fees that they have collected for a new courthouse used towards the new municipal complex). To say the judges are opposed is an understatement. However non-political the CDC is supposed to be, the judges are currently shopping for a mayoral candidate.

As are others. Cantrell’s opponents only need a major controversy to spark opposition to the incumbent mayor. The fact that on Friday evening, as this paper was going to press, Cantrell did a mea culpa, may have been too late. Ending the possibility of return of a famed performance space and impacting the continued cultural existence of the city’s most historic African-American neighborhood – thanks to increased traffic and new construction – could still prove a viable issue.

This article originally published in the June 21, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.